A Granny Square Bag

Well, hello there! Today is Wednesday and is Granny Square Day! Woohoo! The skirt is progressing steadily, but I thought for the sake of variety that I would present you with another project of mine, which has recently gone from WIP to FO... A granny square bag!

This one has been long in the making (nearly a year and a half, to be precise) and has a little bit of a sentimental history to it. It is in fact made out of the first granny square I successfully hooked up... this one below, started en route to a music festival in Belgium and finished in a half torn tent that nearly got blown away by stormy winds, just before we retreated to the safety of a hotel in Bruges. Ah, the memories! ;) Anyway, here is it:

Once it was made and I decided it was going to be a bag, I made four smaller squares in the same variegated yarn for the other side of the bag, and crocheted the sides and bottom in a different variegated yarn in rows of UK double crochets.

Fast forward a year, and I finally got round to joining all pieces together to make up the actual bag, and added wooden rings (upcycled from a curtain rod, by the way!) for a future strap.

I had known very early on what I wanted the aforementioned strap to look like: it was going to be a braid of cotton cords in solid colours matching hues from the body of the bag. I then proceeded to crochet said cords amigurumi-style, ending up with this:

Which I then braided...

...and pinned around the wooden rings:

I then sewed them securely and wrapped grey yarn around all of them for a neater finish. See pics below for that detail, I forgot to take any during the making process, sorry!

So once the outside of bag was finished, it was time to think about the lining. I'll be honest, that part was a little bit of a nightmare. The main thing was that I wanted the bag to retain its square shape, so interfacing was definitely needed. So after I cut my fabric of choice...

...to which I added a little pocket...

(aren't those birdies super cute, by the way? I love them!) ...I pinned the interfacing onto the lining fabric:

I also made a little flap for the snap fastener and inserted a small piece of interfacing into it:

Then, much to my chagrin, I realised the interfacing was going to show through the stitches of the granny squares, so I played around with pieces of black felt...

...unpinned everything and repinned all three layers together, with many a choice expletive and even the odd flood of tears...

When they were finally sewn together, I pinned the lining into the bag (of which I am sorry to say, I don't have any good enough photo...) and left it for a few months, so taking that whole assembling had been.

However, this week, I thought enough was enough, and tackled the final sewing bit. It went relatively smoothly and I am very happy to say that I now have a finished bag to show you! Shall we have a look?

So what do you think? Do you like it? I have to say I am quite a bit in love with it and very proud I managed to make it with my own little hands! It was originally to sell, but I may find it difficult to part with it.

Thanks for reading guys, and for other granny square goodness, go to Jijihook's website, this way.

Ta-ra! :)